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The Chicago Bears Friday announced a long-rumored and much-anticipated shift in stadium development focus back to Arlington Heights.
“Over the last few months, we have made significant progress with the leaders in Arlington Heights, and look forward to continuing to work with state and local leaders on making a transformative economic development project for the region a reality,” according to the team’s statement.
New Mayor Jim Tinaglia, who met privately with Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren ahead of the mayoral swearing-in ceremony May 5, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NFL club’s official announcement – in a short, one-sentence statement emailed to the press Friday morning – comes after public messaging from top Bears brass began moving that way at NFL owners meetings in early April.
At the time, Warren told reporters the team’s focus was on both downtown Chicago and Arlington Heights.
The announcement Friday comes more than a year after the NFL franchise and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson touted a proposed $3.2 billion publicly owned domed stadium on the lakefront, following an organizational shift away from earlier plans for a privately owned structure at Arlington Park.
But the Museum Campus plans in Chicago – and the requested subsidies that would help pay for it all – got a chilly reception in Springfield from Gov. JB Pritzker and top legislative leaders.
At the same time, Bears officials never publicly closed the door on the spacious former racetrack they bought for $197.2 million in February 2023.
It’s where they proposed a $5 billion mixed-use, transit-oriented development in September 2022. Anchored by a domed stadium in the northwest corner of the property, the envisioned development boasted a bevy of uses on some 200 acres to the east, including hotels, a fitness center, sportsbook, hall of fame, performance venue, restaurants, retailers, homes, parks and open space.
But the plans gathered dust on the shelf amid a long-running property tax dispute with three area school districts, prompting the Bears to explore possible development sites in Chicago and other suburbs.
The tax battle was resolved last December, when a memorandum of understanding brokered by Arlington Heights officials was approved by the Bears and elected boards for the village, Palatine Township Elementary School District 15, Northwest Suburban High School District 214 and Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211.
The agreement called for the team to resume economic impact, traffic and other evaluative studies that had been paused during the tax dispute, and begin to refine conceptual site plans for a potential Arlington Park redevelopment.
Warren confirmed resumption of the behind-the-scenes work by the team’s consultants in a Feb. 21 letter to Arlington Heights Village Manager Randy Recklaus, who confirmed in April that preliminary drafts of the traffic and economic impact studies had been received at village hall.
The village, meanwhile, retained consultants of their own in March and April to peer review those studies. Through an escrow fund, the Bears have agreed to pay for the village’s consultant costs.